Leprosy Mailing List – December 16, 2016
Ref.: (LML) Competent leprosy services
From: Tahir Dahiru, Jos, Nigeria
Dear Pieter,
The picture painted by Dr Jaison (LML, December 12, 2016) is more or less the same even here in Nigeria. Although Nigeria detected 2892 new cases of Leprosy in 2015, the skills among health workers has seriously declined. Less than 10% of the country’s total health work force can accurately diagnose and treat Leprosy, including Leprosy complications, conclusively. This of course is a source for concern.
The famous Leprosy Hospitals are managed with young Doctors who have no experience in Leprosy case management and management of Leprosy complications. Even the National TB and Leprosy Training center has no specialist Dermatologist or Surgeon that can take care of complications of Leprosy. The few very experienced Leprosy Doctors are either on retirements or about to retire. No funds allocated for training the young ones.
ILEP partners are doing their best but are faced with dwindling financial incomes from their donors. Governments have and still continue to see Leprosy services as donor projects. For how long this will continue is a subject of discussion for the technocrats in Leprosy world. There is no better time than now to engage Governments at all level to face the challenges of declining quality of Leprosy services in the developing countries and especially in my country. This must be done and must be initiated now.
Tahir
LML - S Deepak, B Naafs, S Noto and P Schreuder
LML blog link: http://leprosymailinglist.blogspot.it/
Contact: Dr Pieter Schreuder << editorlml@gmail.com
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